Line

_ _ _ _ is the four letter word I promised to never say. I wear shirts made out of its color and in the margins of my notebook I draw on its face. I stare out the window and dream of it. I think about blindness and wings. The radio tortures it. Half a hand shake makes traffic unbearable. Closed exits and detours on a freeway at midnight. I have paid 65 dollars for a fixer upper. A friend said there are two ways to cause pain: one, to take a knife and stab it in their stomachs; or, to see a knife in their stomachs and to pull it out. In ninth grade I did a quick write on it and I said _ _ _ _ is a u turn. I wrote it on a pink thing that folds in half and my teacher put it on the bulletin board. Once I said it is like the soft of the belly asking please don't hurt me. My mom replied that'’s why she does sit ups. Alina was saving herself, she said so in the 8th grade locker room that was never well lit enough to feel like anything beyond a dungeon. She had shaved her head before anyone else had and between every jumping jack she touched her hair to see how much it had grown. A man on the bus today smelled of urine. So strongly that strangers made eye contact to feel less alone as they covered their mouths and noses, swallowing any intention of breathing on their way to work. In the two hour meeting with a stack of forms in front of me that I needed to learn how to use I thought about _ _ _ _ and shoulders and headaches. And how they are all related and if I ever would again know that again. Emily Dickinson said

"Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune--without the words,
And never stops at all."”

And I think that is true, because _ _ _ _ could also be a thing with feathers, but I takes naps from time to time and then get distracted and forget to sing. I witness it like a person on a subway watching the signs go by, listening to the conductor say broken words over a broken loud speaker system. Some people have shiny things to prove it. In some places they trade spoons. Some people use it like bouncy ball. Aimee Mann once said, (before she got famous), "I'm a superball, you bounce me once and I'll ricoquette." Another good line from a band before they got famous is "You're a human magic marker, won't you please surprise my eyes." (that's from incubas, an OG album before they became palitable for the radio)